


The Moon in the Water

by Sand_Cursive



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-09
Updated: 2015-08-08
Packaged: 2018-04-12 22:41:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4497459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sand_Cursive/pseuds/Sand_Cursive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How could he be a Crystal Gem?</p>
<p>A story about all the facets left of Lapis Lazuli.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A warm hand in the night

The darkness is devastating in its perfection. An eternity of unfathomable nothingness extends forever, unbroken. No light can penetrate the depth of the void. A hell of conformity, all vision and colour scrubbed from the surface of reality.

The silence is heartbreaking in its completeness. Even thought is swallowed in the cushion of quiet, a maddening circle of uncertainty as all consciousness questions its own existence. A sense of unreality is unavoidable, ability to perceive any sense of self quietly, gently burned away.

She shuts her eyes, unable to tell if they were already closed.

* * *

 

Warmth. The sudden sensation is a surprise, an almost traumatic impression. After so long in an abyss of sensory deprivation, her sensitivity has skyrocketed. She does her best to acclimate, trembling imperceptibly in her prison. An assault of sound comes floating her way, and it takes several sentences before she can put meaning to the words.

“It doesn’t look broken to me.”

It takes her a moment to make sense of the vision. Shapes are the first to be defined, circles upon circles within circles. A very round picture, arranged with a startling lack of precision. _Organic life_ she muses, thoughts groggy and slow. The piece she identifies as the mouth is moving again, and she watches, intrigued.

There’s a smattering of sky behind the figure as he runs, a bright, bright blue. It’s almost blinding. So long in the dark and now this, _this_. There’s a vague stirring within her, a feeling she can’t recognize. The sky is beautiful.

The organic form crashes into another, releasing a cacophony of new noise into the air. After such quiet, it’s deafening. The other form is angry, she realizes. She watches the conversation, cataloging. New, strange words surface, and she skims them out of their sentences like leaves from a pond. Examining, inducing.

 _Steven_. There is a deep satisfaction in finding its meaning. The organic one holding her prison is named Steven. He is laughing now, walking backwards, smiling freely. Such unrestrained happiness. She would feel jealous if she could remember how. She has so few emotions left, now.

Something large and fast is barreling towards them both; she sees it as he swings his arms. The vehicle is coming, so fast, so fast, and she panics. Her prison allows her no words of her own, so she borrows what she’s been offered. The tiny, starving view she’s been given.

“Steven!”

Steven throws up his arms and makes enough noise to draw attention to himself. The tactic seems strange, and frankly ineffective, but the oncoming vehicle stops. There is blaring noise, as he is chastised, and the vehicle swerves around him.

He turns large, shining eyes towards her and asks for an explanation. There aren’t enough words in her limited view to give back, so she offers the only other thing she can think of. She offers back his own laughter, a language unto itself.

“What’s it like, being a mirror?”

 _Work that I never asked for._ Her thoughts don’t align exactly, but she reflects back the closest scene that she can. “You work!” There is a strange lightness within her. She was always a tool, fueling her own prison. So strange, to be able to communicate so succinctly with another. Without being made to reveal passages and stories unrelated and long past. Without being made teacher, spy, informant.

A surge of possessiveness. This Steven, to have managed such a feat. The first one to see the gem within the mirror. He is hers, now. They belong to one another.

Wandering over to the gathering crowd, he makes a strange sound with his mouth, distorting air for no apparent reason. There’s laughter. Oh, to hear laughter. She repeats it, waiting for appropriate pauses within the elevated man’s speech. Steven laughs, and she repeats it, and repeats it, and repeats it. His laughter is freeing, even if she remains confined.

“You’re pretty funny for a mirror,” he says at last.

She is tickled by the thought. Funny. It’s a word that has never been associated with her, not previously. Not dry, not dull. Funny. She returns the gesture reflexively. “You’re pretty funny for a mirror.”

More laughter. “I’m not a mirror.”

The next thing that happens is an accident. She’d never thought it possible, never even considered doing it in the first place. “You’re pretty funny for a . . . Steven!” Cutting scenes shorter had never been difficult before. Combining them was a new beast entirely. There’s a flush of pride. If only she could remember anything before her confinement. If only she could recall pieces of what she’d seen before being thrust into that unbearable void. Oh, the conversations they could have had then.

The remorse is short lived. Even without remembering them, she’s certain she’s better off for it. A small wriggling of misery remains when she tries to look too hard. It isn’t worth the effort.

Steven is ecstatic with the joy of a new discovery. “You made something new!”

 _We’re friends now._ And she tells him so, still basking in the excitement of her new found ability.

“You’re my friend too!” He is flush with pleasure, her surface swirling with his reflection. She cuts and edits, copying and multiplying and creating mandalas of his face. “I’ve got to show the Gems!”

The feeling hits her with such force, such immediacy. There is nothing in her store to express it, only the screaming of the small Steven as he waits to be flattened. Even that is inadequate, but it is all she has.

He smiles, reassuring. So quick to make assumptions. She isn’t nervous, not at all. That isn’t what the trouble is. She remembers them, remembers enough to understand what will happen when they meet. Her prison is intended as just that; a prison. A one-way view both inside and out, a strange contradiction. The **Gems** will not share his enthusiasm as he means it. She panics as he runs, ready to deliver her to her own destruction.

He bursts through his front door, waving and eager. The Gems greet him, oddly tame. Domesticity suits them. Then a spear is thrust through a small figure, and the unease returns, surging, threatening to overwhelm her. Steven is animated, explaining, and she freezes as he brings her up to introduce her. She can see their faces; mistrust, fear, horror. Perfect mirrors of her own. Even saying nothing, they are still in perfect communication.

Steven seems confused by her reaction. He takes her, slowly, into an intimate circle, back turned on the monsters in his dwelling. “Are we not beach summer fun buddies?” Relief floods through her, and she softly reflects back his strange air distortion. He won’t betray her to them. They’re friends. His laughter is happy and his smile is wide, and she feels safer. She relaxes into a short sentence, laughing. Steven is there, nothing can hurt her.

There’s nervous noise in the background, and then she can see them, coming for her. Tall, menacing. _Don’t let them. Don’t let them take me._ And she’s screaming, as much as she can manage, and panicking, and her images are fracturing and rotating and moving in a dizzying pattern. “It’s just a tool.” She can hear them, even through her incessant screaming, even as images are hurled towards the surface, the hand reaching, reaching, reaching.

 _Slap!_ She quiets, so grateful, suddenly afraid. _Thank you, thank you, thank youthankyou Steven. Thank you._ It takes him a moment, though, to gauge the danger he’s in, and she’s surprised by his hesitation to run. _What are you waiting for? You have to go, we have to go, move, move, move!_ The gasp snaps him back into himself, and he runs, screaming, apologetic.

 _Don’t be sorry. They don’t deserve it._ But there’s no way for her to tell him.

She can feel him slipping in the sand, salt water spray hitting them both as he runs. The heartbeat in his fingers has spiked radically, and she lets herself borrow that too. They’re both panicking now. Steven is racked by guilt, by worry, by fear and indecision. He is a young thing, she realizes.

 _I need to help him._ Her resolve strengthens, her mind suddenly clearer. Stronger. _He’ll never manage them by himself._ She’s straining, pushing at her limits, forcing images together. “Let . . . me . . . out!”

“But what do I do?” He’s perspiring now, heavily, and she can feel herself shaking in his grip. She strains, so hard, every aspect of her being trying to make the image come together. Blue, everything is blue again, and suddenly she can feel cold, damp fingers prying clumsily, tugging, tugging and it hurts and everything hurts but she needs this to happen. They both need this to happen.

She can feel it, the water surging up to meet them, and then the glass cracks and suddenly she is limbs and hair and face and so, so heavy. She falls, unsteady, to her knees in the sand, face nearly touching the shore. The air is so cool on her skin, grains of sand scratching relentlessly at her skin, and she is grateful. Sensation once again, real, personal sensation!

“Thank you.” She turns to Steven, smiling, happy. Her friend, a real, honest friend! He set her free! He really did it. She feels like dancing, like laughing, but she can barely stand. Her breath comes out in gasps, thrilling at the burning feeling of the atmosphere in her throat.

“I’m Lapis. Lapis Lazuli.” She pauses, considering. “Are you really a Crystal Gem?”

“Yeah!” He seems pleased to be recognized, and she can feel pity and confusion settling within her.

“But . . . you set me free.”

His face furrows, eyes unsure.

“STEVEN!” The tall one with the glasses, screaming his name from across the beach. She can feel fury rise within her. Monsters, chasing down their prey. Heartless, unyielding. Her limbs tremble, but no longer from disuse. Anger flares through her, and she can feel the water behind her, surging up to meet it.

 _They knew. They **knew.**_ “You didn’t do **anything**!” Water rises like the hand of god. She can feel it, shapes it to the shade of her outrage. “Did you even wonder who I used to **BE**?” She brings it down, heavy with years of neglect, of abandonment. The effect is satisfying - the force of the impact causes the Gems to fly, to scatter. But it isn’t enough. How could it be enough?

There’s more yelling. They’re trying to control him, to keep him prisoner too! How could they? She won’t let them, won’t let anyone shackle them anymore. Steven is _hers,_ he’s _her friend,_ and she will return the favor. She **will** set him free.

She turns towards the ocean. Thank goodness they’d been so close to so much water. _Thank goodness._ It’s meant to be, they’re meant to escape. Everything is lining up before them, ready to be knocked over with the flick of the wrist. Ready to fall into place.“Come with me.”

He falls back, steps sinking heavily. “I can’t!”

The water falls behind her, and frustration rears its ugly head. He needs to leave, can’t he see that they’re bad for him? That they’re his jailers, his enemies? That they’re brainwashing him? She closes her eyes. She could take him. She _should_ take him. Shouldn’t she? But she won’t be his kidnapper and she won’t take any prisoners. This decision will have to be his own. She’ll have to let him make it.

“Don’t trust them, Steven.” She’s calm, the ocean at her back, a world of water at her beck and call. She lets it rise up, engulf her, and she turns, free. A world at her feet, the sky at her head. So close to being free. She’s ready to fly forever.

* * *

 

 


	2. The moon in the water

The water is cool beneath her. She sits, forehead resting on the arms circling her knees. She had been so close. So close! The thought is enough to send her shuddering, in a fit of disbelief and sorrow. She could have been free of this wretched planet if only they hadn’t been so careless. The . . . the . . . the clods!

She’s angry as before, but she won’t turn around. What’s there to gain by going back and picking fights? How will that bring her any closer to where she wants to be?

There’s a sudden vibration underfoot, and she can feel them coming. So, they came to her. Back to pick more fights and impose their own stupid will on everything they touch. The rage, that had been sitting quietly, burning, roars back into a full fire. There’s no way they can take her back. She won’t  _let_  them!

She can feel it, like an echo. The warmth of his hands as he slaps them against her liquid pillar. He came back. He came  _with_  them. Ready to snatch her away again, keep her locked and hidden in the dark. She was foolish for trusting him. For ever believing that he could be anything than what they’d made him.

There is a coldness in her back as she pushes. Pushing them farther out, farther away, just farther, farther, farther! She gives them shape - reflections of water - so they can see themselves as she sees them. Everything shes remembered, everything they are. Greedy and strong and hungry with it.

She’s watched for so long. She remembers now, the more of it. The way they were. The way they are. There is the staccato beat of struggle underneath her, the water rippling with every blow, every vibration. They grow weary, slower, and she loses track of who is who. Refuses to try and determine it. Lapis closes her eyes.

Suddenly, a resounding sound, large and trembling. “I don’t want to fight anymore!”

Her shoulders slump and she is tired. So, so tired. A small, watery girl sitting on the top of the world and still so desperate to get away from it. Her resistance fades, and she clears the path for him. The thought of how easy it would be, how simple, to drown him on the way up, never really fades from her thoughts. Then, the bubble rises and there he is.

He can see it. She is angry and powerful and he can see it, but he isn’t afraid. She reaches out as if to seize him, to crush the hope and the trust from his fragile body. He calls her crazy and she nearly screams. She didn’t want this! She never wanted this. Not any of it.

The bubble bursts. The water catches him, floating, and he makes his unsteady way over to where she sits. “I just want to go home.” She gazes fretfully out at the sky, a million different stars blinking at her. “If I could just stretch it far enough. . .” But she can’t. It won’t work and she’ll never make it home. She’s broken, now. Broken and stuck.

He brightens, like her problem is nothing, and as it happens, to him it is. He slaps something wet and sticky on her gem and she shudders at the alien touch of it. Then, a glow, a warmth, spreading everywhere at once and. Her eyes! She can see again, and keep her own secrets, and choose for herself what she witnesses. No longer a tool. Her wings return, large and beautiful and fluid. And she can go home.

As she spreads her wings and lifts off, she can feel everything falling away. All the tension (and maybe a little of the resentment). She’s going home!

She believes in that dream for all of halfway there. All the way until she hits the homeworld ship.

They are nice, at first. Her suspicions remain, buried deep beneath the surface after relief springs forth. Finally, other Gems! Gems who can take her home.

They ask her questions, give her small home comforts. _From Earth?_  They say, tones conversational.  _Really, how awful for you. Please tell us more._  And the words spill out of her, without thought or pause. It’s what she was always meant to do, after all. Offer information. She doesn’t realize what’s happened until too late.

She is walking, aimless, when she sees it. They aren’t going home, she already knew that.  _We were already going, you see. We have business there._  A quick trip, they’d assured her. But the plans.  _To attack._  The Gems will get what’s coming to them, and rightfully so. But what about the boy? The one who fixed her and set her free? They  _know_  him.

There are very few occupants on the ship. The Jasper is large and intimidating and she shys away from her side. The other, the analytical, brusque Peridot, stays mainly in the control room, micromanaging every aspect of the ship. Lapis is left alone, often, to her own devices.

Everything is so alien to her. All the machines, all the equipment. The advancements they’ve made since she’s been gone - they’ve moved so quickly, taking leaps instead of strides. She has no idea where to start, what to do. She finds something old, ancient, held within the deepest bowels of the ship. A strange, unused storage compartment.

At least this, she can recognize. She fiddles with it briefly, struggling to turn it back on. Even this is slightly newer, slightly more modern, than she remembers. Facets that have been added that she can not understand. When at last she thinks it’s ready, she clears her throat and begins. The panic is rising, unsettling in the back of her mind, and she does her best to speak clearly. Once, twice, setting it on a loop. Just enough for them to find it.

She doesn’t expect it, when they accost her in another room. “I know you’ve sent a signal to Earth.” Peridot is furious, shaking with indignation. “What did you tell them?” Lapis turns away, which is a bad enough mistake until she backs into  _Her_. Jasper. Tall, fierce, hard. Large arms encircle her, crush her to solid rock. “Spit it out, weakling!”

She shuts her eyes against them, but it isn’t enough a barrier against their assault. This time, she remembers to keep her lips sealed, and when finally they toss her into a holding cell, they haven’t gotten anything from her they couldn’t find out for themselves. She is forced to curl back inside her gem, hiding for days and days and days and days until she doesn’t know how long she’s been recuperating.

Finally, she can’t put it off any longer, and she bursts out, chest tight and limbs locked. Her illusory body betrays her and she falls on her side. She can’t get up. Doesn’t try until she can feel the pulsing of the ship beneath her as it breaks into the planet’s atmosphere. So close! The sadness is so bitter in her throat she could brew it. She could have gone home . . .

They drag her up by the arms, force her to stand alongside them and identify. She comes floating out in their sphere, placed beside Jasper so as to be made as un-troublesome as possible. Lapis sees him when they land, and she’s shocked and sad. He is unprepared to handle them. Too weak. Too small.

“He’s only human!” She tries, desperate. “He’s not a threat!”

They believe her up until the attack. They are too concerned to bother with her, bold-faced liar and Crystal Gem sympathizer. But they are brutal afterwards, and they throw her in her cell without so much as a second glance. She pops out of her Gem much faster this time around, and turns her head to the wall.

Lapis is so, so tired of bearing witness to war.

* * *

It isn’t much longer before he finds her, tagging along behind a diminutive Gem. “I can get you out!” He offers, but he can’t! She stops his hands and curls up inside of herself and tells him the truth she doesn’t think he can hear. Their case is hopeless. They are going back to the homeworld, no matter what they do now. There are no more paths left to take.

“I’ll come back for you,” he promises. He believes so much, so hard, in the path of rightness in the world. Lapis holds herself tightly and prays for leniency for all of them. Shuts her eyes and body against the sounds of combat and hopes that Steven is alright. Unharmed. She knows now, that he can’t retreat back into his Gem to heal his body. His face is out of shape and discoloured and it shouldn’t be. He can’t fix it.

There is so much hell to pay for one so young in such a cruel world. She wraps her arms around her knees and prays, fervently, to the stars that he will be alright. A sudden jarring motion, a sputtering of the ship’s momentum, and she knows they’re going down. Steven doesn’t come back for her.

She calls the water up as they get closer, closer. It envelops her, cushions the blow, but the explosion rocks the beach, and she can feel it shaking her bones. She is weakened, and she can barely lift the large rock slab off her back. She staggers, her legs unable to support her, but she can see her from the corner of her eye and she knows she needs to get away. _Jasper_. Wings sprout, quicker than thought, but she can’t escape. Trapped, dragged down again, prisoner.

“Fuse with me!” Jasper asks like she’s making an order. Her eyes are burning, intense, and she shys away from her gaze. She spouts arguments like breath, talking about the betrayal of the Crystal Gems, using the terms of her captivity as debate tools. She doesn’t realize that what she asks is just another prison sentence. Or maybe she does, Lapis realizes, and simply doesn’t care.

“Lapis, don’t do it!” Steven cries. She catches sight of his broken face and she can see his bleeding heart and she knows he would have saved her if he could.

And that’s enough.

She turns to Jasper, ignores her predatory smile, and they dance. The dance is short and emotionless and it doesn’t matter. She knows what has to be done.

She can feel Jasper within her, laughing, powerful, and she brings the ocean up and chains them down. She drags them both, screaming, backwards, into the water. There is so much fight in her, so much discordance, but she has to master both to keep them down here.

She barely gets a last glance at her small human boy. Steven stands, reaching and startled, towards the water, but it’s too late. There’s nothing left but yelling, anger, and darkness rushing in. And she belongs to Jasper now, not to him.

When she looks up, she can no longer see the sky; the stars, the moon. Everything is blue and sombre. 

The boy will have to believe enough for the both of them.


End file.
